26. Traffic Signal

The powerful element at a road crossing in a city with the power to stop hundreds of vehicles or let them go, synchronizing the movement in the fast paced life; the pacemaker powering the city and ensuring the smooth flow of everflowing river of traffic.

A traffic signal - A wonderful ecological system in itself. Like parasites or weaklings in any ecosystem; there are scores of people leading their daily life at the signal, depending on the "strong" ones. From an infant who has not yet understood the hardships of the life, to law enforcement agents like the traffic policemen who breathe in Carbons trying to manage the traffic; from the migrants who setup their small scale business stalls alongside at a signal to the night-lifers of the society who seek "material" to satisfy their physical needs - who know they would find what they need - at the Traffic Signal; everyone plays a part in this ecosystem.
The movie revolves around a traffic signal spot, where everyday as the traffic signal starts swtiching between red orange and green colours; transactions of probably lakhs or rupees take place; by means of beg, borrow, steal, or sell !! The side of society probably unknown to many reading this blog, mostly composed of poor people, chasing their dreams - lead their lives by hook or crook, managing their needs. And even when the traffic signal just flashes orange light during night, vehicles stop at signals; often picking up and dropping the people in the flesh business.

And one day when there is a threat to one of the many traffic signals in a city; when it is to be replaced with a flyover to meet the fast movement needs of the traffic and to help some powerful builders and politicians meet their business goals; the whole system of these poor people is disrupted. Hundreds of dreams are shattered, hundreds small scale business lost, and a small piece of the 200 crore business of the country makes way to a piece of thousands of crores of business.

This movie is more of a documentary, trying to pack in maximum possible characters of this ecosystem, from the stall owners, beggars, street hawkers, enunchs, goons (or the project managers of this system), aimless youth who are daydreaming, aged people who had seen the "true" life, people polocing the traffic and of course the poeple who pass the traffic signal daily, unknowingly writing a chapter in the life of the signal.

Madhur Bhandarkar has again brought in some new faces to fit in as the characters of this movie, and some known faces too in roles never seen before like Konkana SenSharma who sells herself to live, Ranveer Shourie in probably the most serious role of his career so far - cheating the people for money to meet his drug needs.

25. Youn Hotaa Toh Kyaa Hotaa

(What if...)
Four different lives, independent and unknown to each other are linked by one event. The Sept 11 2001 WTC incident. This is the crux of the movie Youn Hotaa Toh Kyaa Hotaa.

Tillotama (Konkana Sensharma) marries Hemant (Jimmy Shergill) just a day ago he is supposed to leave to US to join his new job and then she is waiting for the visa papers so that she could join her husband. But her mother-in-law acts a typical anti-bahu woman and ensures the distance between Tillotama and Hemant.

Nitin (Sameer Sheikh) is forcing his poor but brilliant and studious friend Rahul (Ankur Khanna) who is MBBS to come to US and change his life. But he is stuck to duty towards his father who is fatally ill because of some severe neural disease.

Rajubhai Patel (Paresh Rawal) runs business of sending off Indians to US under pretext of running Gujrati folks shows in US. He comes across task of sending off his long lost poor love (Ratna Shah) Tara's daughter to US. But Tara whose husband is drunkard and poor does not have enough money to pay Rajubhai's regular fees of 12lakhs to send her daughter Payal (Shahana Goswami) to the US.

Salim Rajab-ali (Irfaan) who is a share broker has filed for green card to settle into US. Only thing that stops him from going to US now is his love Namrata (Suhasini Mulay) who is theatre dancer.

America - the land of opportunities, the wealthy country, the country of immigrants, the land of attractions of a lot of aspirant. The four lives are waiting to reach their destiny, only if they can overcome their obstacles.

A quick series of events give these people a chance to break free.

Tillotama files for a tourist visa - to reach to US as a single woman. Fortunately, the visa inspector she faces is understanding and she gets her visa.

Rahul who was bound to his father, gets a chance as his father expires and his brilliant academic career ensures a easy student visa. And of course her rich girlfriend Khushboo (Ayesha Takia) finances his initial expenses.

Rajubhai out of love with Tara agrees to take Payal to US; and fortunately, Payal is talented enough to convince the visa inspectors to grant her a visa too.

Salim finds that Namrata is cheating on him with her co-dancers and an incident with one of his clients forces him to flee to US immediately. He lands up in NY.

Then comes the ill-fated day when the NY skyline changed and around 2700 lives were lost in the tragic event.

While Rajubhai, Payal, Nitin and Tillotama are waiting in Boston to catch the AA flight to LA (which was hijacked and used as the weapon for destroying one of the WTC), Salim is waiting on 95th floor of WTC to meet his brother Javed (Karran Khanna) and a business contact. All these were to meet at the same spot - 95th floor of the WTC at nearly 9am on 11th Sept 2001. Least did they know that this would be the last day of their lives.

The movie moves fast quite nicely and the story too is build quite strong to not to let the audience guess what is the fate of these people until the last hour. The movie is not filled with songs like other bollywood flick, except of a title song sung by Kunal Ganjawala. Also the shuffling of story from character to character does not make one realise that the movie is filled up with a lot of characters.

Probably the little soothing/consoling part of the movie is that Tillotama misses the flight after losing her boarding pass for the flight and does manage to join her husband in LA avoiding being the part of the tragedy. However the other four (and many others at the disaster site) were not so lucky. Had it not been for this twist in the story, probably the movie would have been named, Youn naa hotaa toh kyaa hotaa. (What if this wouldnt have happened). And it was good to see a couple of veteran actors on the big screen - Ravi Baswani ("Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron" fame) and Ratna Pathak (also "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron" fame); though their roles were not very big, their presence was definitely felt.

24. Flyboys

Year 1916AD, WW1 saw the usage of then recently invented "wonder machines" aeroplanes as "war machines" towards the end of the war. As a matter of fact, use of these machines and some daredevil men behind the machines changed the course of the war and ensured that it ended sooner than expected.

Though the machines were being produced in large scale in Britain and France, there weren't many who could fly them. America had not yet entered the war and the two war stricken countries against the mighty and advanced Germans were seeking support from America or the Americans. On the other hand it was only the Germans who had immense experience in flying these war machines, some having experience as much as of years together. It needed sheer guts and some strong nerves to face the air superiority of the German air force. The only way to overcome them was to outnumber them or produce better planes. The Allied forces were making desperate advances on either of these aspects.

Long before America was directly involved in the war, the Americans got involved in the war as the some American youth engaged themselves as the war plane pilots.

Flyboys is true story of one such bunch of young people from Europe and America who got together in Verdun, France 3 years after Germans attacked the French; they train as pilots and gain supremacy in the air during WW1.

Some joined out of family pride, some joined to meet father's expectations, some joined as they ran away from the law, some joined as they did not have any other source to earn money, and some who simply wanted to have a change of profession. They brave the danger where the life expectancy is only 3-6 weeks and once the pilots are airborne, they are not sure whether they would land or crash.

A couple of months after training on the most primitive training methods compared to modern techniques, they squadron of international pilots is given an assignment to bomb one of the arsenal station in deep in German territory. However, they are ambushed much before they could reach target and even the most experienced squadron leader did not manage to proceed far. They return back heavily hit. Only half manage to return. They over a period of time they manage to gain good experience indulging in dogfights with Germans. And then as the Germans are still advancing into the French territory, this squadron manages to undertake important assaults on the Germans erasing their arsenal establishments, bringing down their flight squadrons and failing their assault on French armies.

Those young people who got together to have some change in their life, learn a lot and play important part in the War. Among those people a few lucky ones survive the war.

The movie also showcases heroics out of love, passion and respect for each other.

Prologue: Out of the survivors some carry on to lead on life as follows:Jensen who had joined the war to earn some medals and continue to maintain his family's proud legacy faced some mental breakdown in war after first ambush, but did help out his squadron, (towards the end of the movie) continued to fight in the war and returned home as hero with few medals.Skinner who was black boxer from France, joined US forces when they entered war. However he was not allowed to fly. When he went back to America after war, he joined the US Airmail Service.Beagle a German from Wisconsin, who was restricted from entering America for his bad records against law. He was once alleged of being spy during his training period, but the with trust of his teammates he continued to be member of squadron. He lost his left hand during one of his flights, but bounced back with an hook for an arm and continued to fly for the rest of the war. He then settled in Italy and started his flying circus. Rowlings, who joined the flight team because his ranch was sold off to the bank back home and did not have any job, was the most successful of this "Knights of the air". He found a french love Lucienne, who left for England as French country was taken over by Germans. Before she left with three kids of her dead brother and sister in law, she promised Rowlings to meet in Paris. After war Rowlings returned to Paris, but didn't find his love. He returned to Texas to build one of the greatest ranches of the country and never flew again.

The movie is greatly commendable and definitely worth a watch. Though one must not forget these were only a few of the heroes of that war.